


Being Wrong

by overlordpotatoe



Category: Original Work
Genre: Autism, Disability, Disabled Character, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21623578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overlordpotatoe/pseuds/overlordpotatoe
Summary: When Charlie escapes his drug dealing father and is sent to live with his grandparents, things aren’t suddenly okay. Charlie is broken. He’s not sure he ever wasn’t broken. When things get unbearable, the only thing that helps Charlie feel grounded is music. What can he do when he runs out of batteries for his old walkman?At school crowds of people gather to watch Travis sing, but when he goes home his only company is his cat. He escaped his abusive parents, but now he lives with his older brother who works away from home. Will the strange, quiet boy he finds sitting on his porch trying to listen in on his music put an end to his loneliness?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

The music coming through Charlie’s earphones just about managed to drown out the more cacophonous music coming from the stereo, but there was no avoiding the physical thump of the bass. It felt too similar to the hard, fast beat of a panicked heart for him to disentangle it from his own anxiety.

Pairs of legs walked past the table Charlie sat under in the kitchen, some bare as far up as he could see, some clad in wrinkled jeans. Nobody bothered him. Nobody knew he was there. Charlie had mastered the art of disappearing.

Charlie was six songs into his  _ Best of the Nineties _ tape when a familiar pair of legs approached the table. His dad hadn’t seen him hide himself away in here, but he knew Charlie well enough to find him. Charlie hit pause on his walkman as his dad crouched down.

Pinprick pupils met Charlie’s gaze as his dad tossed three fifty dollar notes into his lap. “Keep that safe, okay?  _ Don’t _ lose it.”

Charlie nodded as he gathered the notes, carefully folded them, and shoved them deep into his pocket. For simple things, he was reliable.

Charlie’s dad was just starting to get up again when someone laughed and dropped to the floor next to him. A young man, maybe university aged, with spiked up hair and a can of beer in his hand. “What are you doing on the floor, mate?”

The guy grinned broadly when his eyes landed on Charlie, but Charlie’s dad’s face was flat and annoyed. Even high he looked tired, old. He hadn’t shaved in days and he’d started looking like he needed a haircut a few weeks ago.

“Why are you under a table, kid?” the guy asked, then grabbed Charlie’s walkman without waiting for an answer. “Hey, you have one of these! One of these, uh, things.”

Normally Charlie was passive, quietly nonresistant, but his walkman was the one thing that mattered to him. He lunged forward and tried to grab it back, but he set himself off balance and it took barely more than a nudge from the guy to tip him backwards. His head thunked hard against something solid, sending pain strumming through his skull and scattering his thoughts. It took Charlie a moment to realise he’d hit his head against the table leg.

“Oh shit,” the guy said, but he was laughing. Charlie’s dad chewed at a hangnail and glanced around like there were places he’d rather be.

“Ryan, what the hell?” a female voice cut in. A woman, tiny and asian and around the same age as the guy, crouched down in front of the table. “Jesus, Ryan. What’s a kid even doing here, anyway?”

“He’s sixteen,” Charlie’s dad interjected.

“He’s your…” She looked between Charlie and his dad. “He’s your kid? You can’t bring a kid here. Holy shit, dude, he’s clearly not having a good time.”

“He’s  _ sixteen _ ,” Charlie’s dad repeated. Charlie didn’t like the edge to his voice, the growing agitation in his movements. The press of the building emotion in the small space under the table melted into the throbbing pain coming from the back of Charlie’s skull and created a confusing mix that disconnected the parts of Charlie’s brain capable of complex thought.

“And that’s too fucking young!” She twisted around and scanned the room. “Azza, he can’t have a sixteen year old kid here, right?”

There was a beat of silence before whoever she’d called out to responded. “Uh… nah, mate, maybe not. If the cops get called, y’know?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “How about because it’s shit parenting,  _ y'know _ ?”

Azza laughed. “Oh, fuck off. Yeah, sure, that too.”

Charlie’s dad didn’t respond, just grabbed Charlie’s wrist in a firm grip and hauled him up. Charlie managed to grab his walkman and narrowly avoided hitting his head on the edge of the table, and then he was being marched through the crowded house and out through the front door. As soon as they were outside, Charlie’s dad snatched the walkman from Charlie’s hand and threw it hard against the side of the house.

Something lurched deep in Charlie’s gut at the sound of plastic cracking and he twisted out of his dad’s grip. The second his fingers closed around his walkman, his dad pulled him up and dragged him towards the car. He opened the car door on the passenger side, shoved Charlie in, and then slammed the door and stomped around to the other side to get in.

“You’re so fucking useless,” Charlie’s dad grumbled as he jammed the key into the ignition. “Why do I even keep feeding you? You’re like a retarded puppy that keeps peeing on the carpet. If I had half a brain I’d just fucking get rid of you, right?”

Charlie ran his fingers along the new crack running down the front of his walkman. Was it just the plastic casing that was damaged, or was it finally broken for real? It hadn’t been new when he’d got it and after a few years of love the purple paint was worn away around the corners and buttons. It was hard to imagine it being anything but indestructible, though. He’d dropped it into a pool once and it had worked as well as ever after it had dried out.

Charlie’s dad strummed an agitated rhythm on the steering wheel as he turned onto the highway. There wasn’t much traffic this time of night.

Charlie’s gaze cut to the speedometer. “You’re going too fast.”

“Who gives a shit,” Charlie’s dad mumbled. The speed crept up.

“The police,” Charlie pointed out. “And I do. And you  _ should _ . You’re not even wearing your seatbelt.”

For a second Charlie thought he’d gotten through to his dad as he took his eyes off the road and shifted around, but then his dad pressed the button to release Charlie’s own seatbelt.

“Don’t!” Charlie shouted and quickly buckled himself back in. “You shouldn’t be driving. You’re too high.”

“Oh, you don’t want to be in this car with me right now?” The pointer on the speedometer crept lower as the car began to slow, to the proper speed limit and then below it. “I think we can arrange that, huh?”

“Dad…”

“I’m sick of your shit.” The car slowed to a stop on the side of the highway and Charlie’s dad pressed the release on Charlie’s seatbelt again. “Get out. You can walk home.”

Charlie looked around helplessly. He had no idea where there were in relation to home, but he knew it was too far to walk. His dad would have known it too if he was sober.

Charlie’s dad leant over him and opened the passenger side door. “Get out.” When Charlie didn’t move, his dad gave him a firm shove. 

Charlie fell into darkness on the side of the road, hitting the ground shoulder first. Before he could get to his feet, the door slammed shut behind him and the car sped away.

It was a long moment before Charlie got to his feet, then only a few seconds before he had to sit again. He felt disconnected from the aches of his body, drowned so deep in his own mind that even fear didn’t truly reach him. Part of him wanted to walk into the bush that surrounded the highway, to keep walking until he no longer could, to simply disappear. The thought of slowly dying alone in the bush didn’t scare him like it should have.

Instead, he started walking along the highway in the direction his dad had driven. Maybe he’d turn around and come back. Maybe if Charlie walked long enough he’d find his way home on his own. He’d passed eleven electricity poles before he realised he still had his walkman clutched in his hand.

It was almost on reflex that Charlie put his earbuds in and pressed play. Deep in his chest, something relaxed as the sound of a familiar song enveloped him. It still worked just as well as ever. Indestructible. Charlie only wished he were that durable, that the many cracks in him didn’t affect how well he functioned.

Following the highway was the safest bet for finding his way home and the only way his dad would find him if he did come back, but it wasn’t a good route for pedestrians. Especially not in the dark. After a truck drove past him so close that the breeze from it made him stumble and then nearly falling down into a dry creek bed, Charlie took the next exit.

Nothing looked at all familiar. There was a row of shops, closed this time of night, and houses on the other side of the street. Just a regular suburban area. A bus pulled up ahead of him and somebody got off. If Charlie had money, he could…

But Charlie  _ did _ have money. He had a hundred and fifty dollars. His dad would be mad if he spent it, but bus fare wasn’t much. There wasn’t time to think it through. Charlie pulled out his earbuds and hurried up the bus steps.

It wasn’t until Charlie had pulled out a fifty dollar note and held it out to the driver that he realised he didn’t know what to say, didn’t even know if he could make words come out of his mouth even if he could think of the right ones.

The bus driver, a slightly overweight middle aged woman, stared at the note for a second before shaking her head. “I can’t make change for that, love. You got anything smaller?”

Charlie slowly withdrew his hand. No, he didn’t have anything smaller. Belatedly he realised he needed to communicate that and shook his head.

“All right, don’t worry about it. Just get on.”

Charlie hesitated for a long moment, then turned and went to find a seat near the back. She had let him on even though he couldn’t pay. That had been a nice thing to do. He should have said thank you, but he couldn’t do words just then. He said it in his head instead. Thank you.  _ Thank you _ .

He hadn’t really thought this bus thing through, though. There was only one right direction to go in and many wrong ones, and going the wrong way faster wouldn’t help him at all. But maybe, if the bus went to enough places, eventually he would recognise something. He could find somewhere he could start from to work his way home.

Three songs later, Charlie was almost certain they were heading in the exact opposite of the right direction. He stuck his earphone cord in his mouth and sucked on it. He should  _ probably _ get off so that he didn’t get any further from home, but then what? This had been his one idea, his one chance at a solution. It wasn’t allowed to not work.

The bus weaved through suburban streets, letting people off and occasionally collecting new passengers. It was a weekday night and most people were heading home from work. They came and went calmly, locked into the comforting tedium of routine, each one knowing where they needed to go and how to get there.

Eventually the bus pulled back onto a main road where the lighting was better and Charlie could at least try to find some familiarity in his surroundings. Had he seen the train station they just passed before, or did all train stations just look the same? And that pub across the street, was that… had he… 

Something squeezed in Charlie’s chest and churned his gut, panic or excitement. He’d  _ been  _ there. Many times, sitting alone at a table with a glass of orange juice in front of him while his dad sat at the counter and talked with his friends. He remembered the ice cubes they had, the ones with the holes through the middle you could poke the black straws through. It had been years ago, back when the only time he’d spent with his dad was occasional weekend visits, but he  _ remembered _ . Charlie slammed his hand on the bell.

The bus didn’t stop immediately, but that was okay because things only go more familiar from there. The bus headed up the hill, past rows of small shops and towards the shopping centre he’d gone to every weekend with his mum to get groceries. The bus stopped in front of it and Charlie got out.

Charlie smiled and felt like he might cry. He knew where he was, and where he was felt like home like nowhere he’d lived with his dad ever had. They moved around too much and his dad couldn’t be counted on to be the same person from one day to the next. Charlie was a block away from the shopping centre before he even really registered that he’d started walking, but he knew where he was going. He was going home.

It wasn’t that close — far enough that he’d always taken the bus with his mum instead of walking — but Charlie knew the way. He felt distant from the aches of his body and the turmoil of his mind, but the simple act of walking without thinking soothed out the jitters in him. This whole event felt like a dream, like he could be swallowed whole by it any second and like whatever happened nothing could truly harm him. Halfway through the journey, the song Charlie was listening to slowed to a deep warble and then stopped as the batteries in his walkman finally died.

The apartment building looked different from his memories — a fresh coat of paint, different plants in the garden bed — but it was still the same. The same weight of the door when he pushed it, the same concrete stairs inside, the same numbers on the doors as he counted his way up to apartment 205.

A different person who answered the door.

Charlie hadn’t been expecting his mum. Not really. He hadn’t been expecting this woman, either, her curly dark hair or her flowery pyjamas. 

She hadn’t been expecting him, either. “Um… can I help you?”

Charlie didn’t realise he’d taken a step forward until she took a step back, and once she was no longer blocking the doorway it felt natural to walk inside. It was the same mix of different and the same in here, too. The sofa was different, but exactly where their old one had been. The TV was bigger, newer. The walls were a slightly different colour, Charlie was fairly sure, and the kitchen area in the corner looked almost exactly as Charlie remembered it besides a few small appliances.

The woman was behind him, and she was saying things, but that didn’t matter just then. Charlie headed down the hall and poked his head into his bedroom, now her bedroom. It looked completely different, though in truth much better. He envied the fairy lights she’d weaved through her bedframe. On the other side of the hall, his mum’s room was now a study.

Charlie headed back into the living room and finally looked at the woman again. She looked angry, or scared, or both. She was holding a broom in front of her in a defensive stance. It hadn’t occurred to Charlie that anyone might ever see him as dangerous. Charlie sat down on the sofa in the hopes of showing her he was no threat, then lay down because he desperately needed to. He rolled over to face the back of the sofa and buried his face against a fluffy pink cushion.

With everything else blocked out it was easier to listen to what the woman was saying, but she wasn’t talking to him now. After a few confused moments, Charlie realised she was on the phone.

“Yeah, uh, this guy just walked into my apartment.” She paused, listening to whoever was on the other end. “No, I don’t know him, he just knocked on the door and walked in. And now he’s taking a nap on my couch. I think he might be on drugs.”

Charlie wanted to tell her that he was  _ not _ on drugs, that he never used drugs ever, but he knew any attempt at words just then would come out a garbled mess and then maybe he’d cry.

“I mean, I don’t think he’s like… dangerous. He’s got his feet dangling off the couch so he doesn’t get his shoes on it. Just send someone to get him out of my apartment, please?”

Charlie knew he should probably leave now so that nobody had to come and move him, but even unburying his face and confronting the brightness of the room felt like too much. Besides, if he left, where would he go? He’d wanted so badly to go home, but home wasn’t here anymore because home was his mum and she wasn’t coming back. She couldn’t. He could still remember how cold her cheek had felt against the palm of him hand.

The knock on the door was too loud, and Charlie wished he still had his music to drown the world out. He needed more batteries. If he knew the night was going to drag out so long he would have brought spares.

The sound of voices after the woman opened the front door was abrasively loud, but at the same time somehow too quiet for Charlie to figure out what was actually being said until they moved closer. There was a male voice now and another woman.

“I think he’s just confused,” the woman whose apartment Charlie was in said. “He went and looked around before he lay down. I think he just walked into the wrong apartment or something.”

“That happens a lot,” the male voice assured her. “We’ll get him out of your hair and figure out where he belongs.”

“Hey, kid, come on,” the new female voice said from directly behind Charlie. “Let’s get you home.”

_ Home _ sounded good. Charlie rolled over to look up at her, got a brief glimpse of a police uniform, then squinted away and pressed the crook of his arm over his face as the brightness of the room assaulted his eyes.

The sounds of fabric brushing against fabric told him that the female officer had crouched down next to him, and then her hand was on his arm gently pulling it back. When she spoke, her voice was gentler. “Come on. Let me see your eyes.”

Charlie allowed her to move his arm, but he couldn’t help squeezing his eyes shut against the light. Slowly he managed to relax, then blink them open, but he could feel the grimace on his face.

“Pupils look normal.” She was looking at Charlie, but he got the impression she was talking to the other officer behind her. She had short, auburn hair. Charlie liked it. “What’s your name, kid?”

Charlie’s lips moved, but the idea of trying to speak just then made him deeply uncomfortable. He pulled his walkman out of his pocket and pointed to the faded letter stickers he’d arranged on the front to spell his name.

“Charlie,” she read. She smiled at him, but Charlie saw it slide off her face as she turned to speak to her partner. “I don’t know about drugs. Maybe an intellectual disability. Can you call in and check if anyone’s called him in missing? White male, brown hair, blue eyes, looks around mid-teens, goes by Charlie.”

Charlie did not have an intellectual disability, he was not on drugs, and his dad would never have reported him missing to the police. He could tell her none of this, though, so he just sat up and pulled his hood up so that he had some protection from the intensity of the world.

“Okay Charlie, I’m Constable Katherine Bradley. You can call me Kate,” Kate said, as though Charlie was likely to be verbally addressing her in any way. “My partner over there is Constable Lukas Lau. You can call him Luke.”

Luke was an asian man with hair shaved military short. Charlie wanted to touch it, but you could probably get arrested for that.

“Now, can you answer some questions by nodding or shaking your head?”

Charlie considered that. Yes, just then he could both process what was being said to him and respond nonverbally. He nodded.

Kate smiled. “Good. Have you had any pills or alcohol or anything like that tonight?”

Charlie shook his head. He wanted her to ask if he had an intellectual impairment, too, so that he could shake his head again, but she moved onto a different topic.

“Do you live in this apartment building?”

Charlie hesitated. He  _ had _ , but that wasn’t the question. He shook his head again.

“Do you know anyone who does?” her partner cut in from behind her.

The unexpected voice in the mix distracted Charlie for a moment, and he had to run the words back through his mind a couple of times before they made sense. Did he know anyone who lived here? He  _ had _ , but how was he supposed to know if they still did? Charlie gave an awkward shrug.

“You’re not sure?” Kate asked.

Charlie nodded.

“You’re not sure if you’re in the right apartment building, or you’re not sure if they still live here?”

That wasn’t a yes or no question, so it didn’t work with their response method. Charlie shook his head and then nodded it in an attempt to adapt.

Kate smiled. “Sorry. You’re not sure if they still live here?”

Charlie nodded.

“Did you think they lived in this apartment?”

Charlie shook his head. He was starting to feel even tireder than he had before and it was becoming harder and harder to focus on the questions he was being asked. He just wanted to go home.

“Can you show us where you think they might live?” Kate asked.

Charlie nodded and got up off the couch. It wasn’t far, just next door, where the old lady who used to babysit him had lived. Helen. Charlie hadn’t liked most people, but he’d liked her. She’d knitted him toys and let him watch his favourite movies on her little TV whenever he came over. But she’d been old, and it had been six years, and nothing seemed to stay the same for that long. 

The lighting was dimmer, out in the hallway. Gentler on his eyes. He knocked on her door and then sat down on the floor in front of it.

The image Charlie had of Helen in his mind was vague and indistinct, almost forgotten, but somehow he still recognised her as soon as she opened the door. Her eyes found the two officers behind him first, then drifted down to Charlie and squinted in confusion. There was no recognition in them.

“Sorry to bother you so late, ma’am,” Luke said. “You don’t recognise this kid at all, do you? He’s a bit lost and we’re trying to figure out where he’s come from.”

The veins on her legs were big and purple and her skin looked loose and thin. When he was ten, she’d let him touch the protruding veins on the backs of her hands. He’d like the way they felt.

“Oh, that is a worry,” Helen said, her voice weak and scratchy. “I’m afraid I don’t really get out much these days. There are some college boys two doors down who might have seen him around.”

Kate thanked her for her time and apologised again for bothering her as Luke bent down towards Charlie.

Luke’s fingers wrapped around Charlie’s arm and tried to pull him up, but he made himself into a passive, immoveable weight. When the door in front of him began to shut, he kicked his foot out to block it.

“Kid…” Luke said, and tugged Charlie’s arm more firmly. If he’d used his full strength he probably could have moved Charlie easily, but he was still trying to be gentle. Was refusing to stand up when a police officer told you to illegal? “Charlie, come on.”

The door pulled open again and Helen stared down at him. “...Charlie?”

Charlie couldn’t put a name to the emotion on her face, but there definitely was one. She knew who he was now. He tucked his knee back against his chest.

“You do know him?” Kate asked.

“I—” Helen hesitated, then nodded. “I didn’t recognise him. It’s been… oh, let’s see…”

Charlie held up six fingers.

The laugh Helen let out sounded fragile. “Yes, it would have been about six years. He lived next door with his mum, and then…” She paused, took a shaky breath. “Everyone thought his father had probably taken him, but the police couldn’t find him. Is that what happened, Charlie?”

Charlie twisted the cords on his hoodie together. He knew better than to give out any information about his dad in front of the police.

“So his mother is—” Kate began to say, then abruptly stopped. Charlie could see Helen shaking her head vigorously out of the corner of his eye. “Do you know if he has other family?”

“Yes, his grandparents on his mother’s side. They were very worried about him.”

Charlie popped the knotted end of one of the cords on his hoodie in his mouth and bit down on it. His grandparents? Even before he’d gone to live with his dad he hadn’t seen them for a couple of years. As far as Charlie knew, they’d never even liked him. They’d been so incompatible with him that they had barely known him as anything more than a screaming mess.

A couple more exchanges passed between the police and Helen before Charlie even noticed he wasn’t listening anymore. He tried, briefly, to tune back in again, but promptly gave up. It was  _ their _ job to solve this problem now. He wasn’t needed anymore.

It wasn’t long before Kate gently encouraged him to his feet and led him down the cement stairs, out of the apartment building. He didn’t like the feel of the light touch of her hand against his elbow, but he did like how it directed him so that he didn’t really have to think. She got him into a police car and sat with him in the back.

She talked to him and asked him questions, but Charlie wasn’t listening. His brain kept trying to fill in the blanks of what would come next, but he had no answers. He knew they wouldn’t be taking him back to his dad.

They ended up at a hospital, which made no sense at all. Charlie wasn’t sick and his only injuries were a few bruises nobody had even seen. Hospitals were bright and busy. Things went beep and a baby was crying. Every sheltered nook they passed called out to Charlie to crawl into it and hide himself away.

He ended up in a room with a female doctor and with Kate. The doctor tried to get him to take a tablet, but when he pressed his lips firmly shut and leant away from her she didn’t push him.

The doctor made him take off most of his clothes and looked him over carefully, pausing to take pictures of bruises and scars. It was cold. She didn’t touch him much, but every bit of contact made him want to hit or bite. He would have when he was ten, before his dad had taught him consequences. Now he just imagined himself doing it.

While the doctor examined a scrape on Charlie’s knee that Charlie couldn’t even remember acquiring, Kate bent down and picked up his jeans. She must have seen one of the notes poking out, because she went straight for his pocket. She held the money up for him to see. “Is this yours?”

She didn’t sound accusatory, but she was a police officer and the money had come from his dad selling drugs. Charlie pretended not to have heard her even though he was looking right at her.

“Okay. I’ll keep hold of it for you until we can figure things out, then.”

Charlie chewed at the inside of his cheek, but he didn’t respond. He knew he might never see his dad again, but that didn’t stop him panicking about how angry his dad was going to be when he found out the money was gone and that a police officer had taken it. The lights in the room seemed brighter than they had been a minute ago.

Charlie didn’t notice his teeth digging into the back of his arm until the doctor and Kate both saying his name pulled him back into the present. There were teeth marks in his skin when he pulled away, but nothing that wouldn’t fade soon enough.

Less than a minute later Charlie was allowed to put his clothes back on and Kate led him to a small waiting area with some chairs. Nobody else was there, but it was still too bright and even the more distant sounds of activity made Charlie’s brain itch. He wanted to be at home, in his bed, buried deep under blankets with music in his ears. He wanted this to all be a dream, and could almost believe it was one. It definitely didn’t feel  _ real _ .

Kate talked to him, and he wished she wouldn’t. It was just more sound. She stopped him when he tried to bite his hands, but she let him chew on his hoodie cords. What were they waiting for? Why were they still here?

Kate stood as a small group of people approached, but Charlie stayed sitting, head down and fingers and mouth occupied with his hoodie cords. He didn’t want to be noticed. He felt like he was going to explode, but the part of him that was capable of that had been burnt out years ago.

He heard his name mixed in with other words, spoken by a voice tinged with distress that only put him more on edge. Charlie’s eyes flicked up. Luke was back, and there was a man and a woman with him. Older, but not elderly. Upset. The woman’s eyes looked red and wet.

“Charlie—” Kate began to say as they turned towards him, but the other woman was already moving. 

Close, too close, and then before Charlie could process what was happening he was confined in arms that felt too stiff, too unyielding. He wanted to scream and claw and bite, but instead he just tried to sink down in his chair to slip away. It didn’t work. The perfume the woman was wearing made his head hurt.

“He’s still a bit, uh… he might need a little space for a while, ma’am.” Kate had moved closer, hand extended towards them but not touching. “Charlie, you remember your grandparents?”

The body pressed against his retreated, and Charlie looked up at a face that should have been familiar but wasn’t really. He had probably been around eight when he’d last seen his grandmother. It was half a lifetime ago.

He did remember them, though, as a set of events and incidents.

He remembered the cricket game his grandpa has taken him to, the noise of the crowd and the overwhelming smell of food. He remembered how he'd cried and tried to crawl under his seat until his grandpa had picked him up and carried him out of the stadium while he screamed and flailed because he didn't want to be touched.

He remembered Christmas dinners where his grandma fussed at him to try new foods, then fussed at him some more when he picked even the things he did like apart. He remembered his mum desperately trying to play peacemaker, to calm him with every trick she knew, and he remembered how it had always ended in tears despite her best efforts.

He hadn’t liked them and he hadn’t given them any reason to like him. Why were they here? Why was there hugging and crying?

“Charlie,” Kate said, and he realised he hadn’t been listening again. “Your grandparents are going to take you home with them now. Okay?”

Charlie wanted to ask why, but instead he just nodded. He wasn’t sure it was a good thing, but it was an answer to the problem of where he would go. He needed that.

He didn’t sleep in the car, but he did shut his eyes and let his head loll to the side and pretend. His grandmother sat with him in the back, her hand stroking down his arm repeatedly. He didn’t want to be touched, but he knew if he opened his mouth what would come out wouldn’t be a polite request. He doubted it would even be words.

There had been a vague map of his grandparents’ house in his mind, pieced together from various memories, but he felt no familiarity as he was led through it. The broad landscape of it was the same, but it was too faded in his memory for anything to really click.

The room at the end of the hall was the guest room, now his room, and as soon as he was led into it he took the opportunity to leave his grandma’s side and bury himself under the thick blanket on the large bed.

“Yes, I suppose you would be tired,” his grandma said from the doorway. A moment of silence stretched. She didn’t move. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Charlie. Sleep well.”

It wasn’t until the door clicked shut behind her that Charlie allowed himself a long exhale. These people may as well have been strangers to him. Everything was different. He didn’t know how to live this life.

All he wanted now was to sleep, to rest in the only way he could when everything was so confusing and uncertain. He was definitely tired enough. His brain was too exhausted to form coherent thought, but also too overstimulated to properly settle. It jumped around erratically, replaying tiny slices of different things that had happened that day. Gradually the memories fragmented and he finally drifted off to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Wakefulness settled in slowly, and then all at once as the unfamiliar environment startled Charlie awake. Memories of what had happened last night settled in, but none of it felt real. How could so much have changed so quickly?

Before Charlie now was a new life, but all he could do was lay in the bed they’d told him was now his and count the flowers on the bedspread. This bed was bigger than the one he’d had at his dad’s house, softer, cleaner. Better in every way he could think of, but somehow wrong in its differentness. He tried burying his head under the blankets and found that too much light and not enough air filtered through.

Eventually there was a quiet knock on the door, and then a second later it slid open a crack and Charlie’s grandpa peaked in. He seemed surprised to see Charlie awake. For a second it seemed like he might just turn and leave, but then the door opened all the way and he stepped just inside the doorway. “So. You’re up, then.”

Charlie made a quiet, noncommittal sound. He wasn’t  _ up, _ but he was awake, and he figured that was what his grandpa probably meant.

Charlie’s grandpa looked around the small room. “This place isn’t really set up for a teenage boy, eh? Guess we’ll have to get you some new sheets and curtains and such like. Ones without flowers.”

Charlie looked around the room and found himself relaxed by its simplicity. Just a bed and a nightstand with a lamp on it as far as furnishings went, plus a built in closet that looked large enough to hide in. 

The long, flowery purple curtains covered a sliding glass door that opened into the back garden, giving Charlie a welcome sense of freedom. He still wasn't sure how he felt about the rest of the house, but Charlie decided he liked his new room.

Charlie’s hand moved to scratch the back of his neck, though it didn’t itch, and he shrugged. "I don't mind flowers.”

Silence fell for a moment as Charlie’s grandpa shifted against the doorframe, and it was only then that Charlie realised that those were the first words he’d spoken to any of them. Maybe they hadn’t even known he still could speak. His grandpa pushed a smile onto his face that looked strained and not at all real. "Well, I reckon the first time you have friends over and they make fun of you, you'll change your mind about that."

"I'll make nicer friends.”

"Son, even the nicest kid is going to think you're a pansy if your room is covered in flowers."

"Pansy..." Charlie repeated. That was a kind of flower. "What?"

Charlie’s grandpa shook his head and when he spoke, his tone had softened. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get you some new ones.”

Charlie wasn’t  _ worried _ , he just didn’t understand, but it didn’t seem like an explanation was forthcoming so he let it drop.

“We didn’t know where you were,” Charlie’s grandpa said after a stretch of silence. “With your dad, yeah?”

Charlie nodded.

Charlie’s grandpa echoed the nod. “And your mum. Do you… know what happened?”

Charlie nodded. His throat felt tight. He hoped he wouldn’t have to  _ say _ what had happened, because he didn’t think he could.

“The police said it was probably just an accident, but then you were gone and we didn’t know. Maybe he’d done something so he could take you, or maybe someone  _ else _ had taken you. There was a lot of not knowing.”

“I called him. To come and get me,” Charlie said, because that was all he could say. His voice sounded wrong even to his own ears. Unsteady. Thick. 

It hadn’t been as simple as that. He’d called and his dad had laughed, told him he was lying, because just a week ago he’d been near hysterical about finding a lumpy bit in his sausage. How could his voice be calm and even if his mother was dead? And he hadn’t had an answer to that, so he’d hung up and he’d waited an hour, or two hours, and then his dad had come and they had left.

“Where were you staying with your dad?”

_ No _ had been Charlie’s first word, his only word for a long time and his favourite word for years afterwards. It had been his sword and his shield. Now it felt like a bomb caught in his throat. He didn’t dare release it.

“Charlie? Do you know the address, or the name of the street? Somewhere he might be?”

Silence was a safer defiance. Eyes down, body still. Passive. Charlie tensed when he saw his grandpa move closer out of the corner of his eye. His grandpa paused. His grandpa turned and left the room.

Charlie hadn’t been hot a minute ago, but he was sweating now. They wanted to know where his dad was so that they could get him in trouble. For what? His dad hadn’t done anything. Just drugs, and that had really only hurt himself and people who made the choice for themselves to buy from him.

The peace didn’t last long enough for Charlie to resettle himself. Just a few minutes after his grandpa had left the room, his grandma marched into it and sat down on the bed next to him.

“Oh, sweetheart.” She reached out a hand and patted Charlie’s cheek. “Look at you. You’ve grown so much.”

Charlie rubbed at the lingering tickle the contact had left on his cheek. He didn’t know what to say in response. Yes, he had grown.

Apparently it hadn’t required a response, because she continued talking. “How are you feeling now?”

She paused and watched him, waiting. How was he feeling? Overwhelmed, mostly. He wanted home and familiarity. A bit sore, but a few bruises weren’t a big deal. He tugged at a clump of his hair and shrugged his shoulders. “Fine.”

“Well!” she said and smiled in a way that stretched her lips wide but held no genuine emotion. She was wearing red lipstick and it was slightly smudged at one corner. “I thought today we could go shopping. Buy you some clothes and whatever else it is teenage boys need.”

She was looking at him like she expected a response, so Charlie lifted his shoulders in a vague shrug. He didn’t want to even get out of bed, but he doubted she would accept a  _ no _ . She never had when he was a kid.

Apparently the shrug had been good enough, because she turned her attention to pulling the curtains open on the large glass door that took up most of one wall. As Charlie squinted against the new light assaulting his eyes, he caught a flash of a small, fluffy animal dashing over the fence. A cat, probably.

“The doctor said you might need a few days to rest, but she also thought you had some kind of mental disability and that’s clearly not true,” Charlie’s grandma continued. “I told her to look up that IQ test you took when you were little. I swear, your mother was so proud of that and I don’t know why. It hardly reflects well on her when her smart child is a complete hellion who’s not exactly excelling at school.”

_ Smart _ had never been the thing Charlie was lacking. At least not the kind measured by an IQ test. Puzzles were easy. The real world was far more complex, and just… far  _ more _ . But he couldn’t articulate any of that, especially not under the critical and unsympathetic gaze of his grandma, so he just kept his head down and let her talk at him until she gave him instructions to take a shower and finally left him be.

#

After his shower, Charlie put the clothes he’d been wearing since yesterday back on. He patted at the shoulder of his hoodie, trying to get some of the dirt it had picked up when he’d been pushed out of the car off, but there was no escaping the fact that it wasn’t exactly clean. As much as the idea made him mentally cringe, his grandma was right. Clothes shopping was necessary. But maybe it could be made at least a little easier.

It was his grandpa he approached, his walkman clutched in his hand. He stood silently in front of the armchair his grandpa was reading the newspaper in and waited to be noticed. Charlie wasn’t sure which one of his grandparents intimidated him more. His grandma had always seemed to be the more powerful force of the two, but he found men more inherently threatening. He’d never been physically hurt by a woman.

Charlie’s grandpa lifted his eyebrows in question when he looked up, then his gaze dropped to Charlie’s walkman and they pulled together. “Is that a tape player? I didn’t know anyone still had those.”

He was right about that. Nobody even sold tapes anymore. Over the years Charlie’s collection had dwindled as they got broken or lost in hasty moves, and now it looked like it was just going to be  _ The Best of the Nineties _ from here on out.

“The batteries went flat,” Charlie explained.

“I’m sure we have some around somewhere. We’ll have a look when we get back.”

Charlie’s knuckles somehow found their way into his mouth. He wanted to say,  _ no, I need them  _ now _ , I need a sound buffer between me and the world so that reality doesn’t touch me quite so intensely. _ Instead what came out of his mouth was an upset sound that quickly melded into an amicable, “Okay.”

#

Clothes shopping with his grandparents was… an experience. Shopping centres were always bright and loud and crowded. His grandma was too touchy, holding clothes against him to see if they would fit, and his grandpa had an uncomfortable habit of standing behind him.

Charlie quickly lost the ability to make proper words. He tried when his grandma wouldn’t stop prodding him for an opinion on a shirt, but what came out was words that weren’t all words strung together in an order that didn’t make sense. And then his grandma told him to stop chewing on his knuckles, because yes, he was doing that again.

By the time they got back to his grandparent’s house, Charlie needed batteries badly but completely lacked any ability to ask. At least not with words. The universe decided to grant him one small mercy, though, and when he brought his walkman to his grandpa again he understood what he wanted. 

Batteries were found. Music was temporarily restored. The intense press of the world backed off just a tiny bit.

#

When Travis got home from school, he was unsurprised to find Robby gone. From the moment he opened the door and found the living room empty, he knew his brother wasn't just in his room. The flat felt different when he wasn't there. 

Artemis, who had been sleeping under a bush outside, followed Travis through the door, trilling happily in greeting. Travis spared her a quick stroke before setting his guitar and school bag aside and gathering up the empty beer bottles Robby had left strewn next to the sofa. He spotted the note on the refrigerator when he went to put them in the recycling, telling him what he already knew. Robby had gone back to Gladstone to be with his girlfriend. It didn't say when he would be back. 

Not for a few weeks at least, Travis knew that much. If he was back up there now he wouldn't fly down again before his next shift in the mines. Robby was a fly-in, fly-out miner, which meant two weeks solid of twelve hour work days followed by two weeks off. In theory that meant he should have been with Travis half the time, but Travis was well aware he reminded Robby of the past. Most of the time, Robby preferred the company of his girlfriend.

More and more these days, Robby was reminding Travis of things he'd rather forget too. Unlike Travis, Robby had always had a large, bulky frame, and put on muscle easily. Heavy labour had only strengthened his build. And then with the drinking... He'd never once come anywhere near hitting Travis, but sometimes Travis couldn't help being a little afraid of him whenever he raised his voice. He felt guilty for it, but when he looked at Robby and saw so much of their father he just couldn't help it.

At the end of the year Travis would graduate high school, and after that he planned on getting a job and moving out. He didn't want to be relying on anyone but himself any longer than he had to.

#

When Charlie’s grandma had said they would be having pasta for dinner, he had imagined what his dad usually made. Regular spiral shaped pasta with tomato paste and cheese. Simple and safe. This was... well, green for one thing. The pasta was tube shaped and cooked in some kind of creamy green sauce.

Charlie didn't want to be rude, but he also really didn't want to eat the unfamiliar food. Things that were new almost exclusively tasted bad to him and eating them made him feel nauseous. Charlie was so tired and he just... he didn't  _ want  _ to.

"Can I have cereal instead?" Charlie asked quietly.

Charlie’s grandma sighed deeply and ran a hand over her face. She looked tired too. “Cereal is not a dinner food.”

"Your gran worked hard on making this," Charlie's grandpa contributed. "She's a very good cook. Don't you think you should at least try it before deciding you don't like it?"

Charlie had long since concluded that other people weren't like him. Most people, it seemed, could try new things and sometimes discover they liked the flavours. It had never worked that way for Charlie.

He didn't want his grandparents to think he was just difficult, though, so he pierced a piece of pasta with his forked and placed it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed. Charlie did his best to keep his opinion of the strong, unfamiliar flavour of the pasta off of his face.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Charlie's grandma asked.

Charlie didn't reply, just did his best to wash the taste away with a big gulp of water. With some experimentation Charlie found that if he cut a piece of the pasta in half and placed in at the back of his throat, he could swallow it down without having to taste it too much. It was probably obvious what he was doing, given that he was taking a drink of water after each bite, but neither of his grandparents commented.

"I'm full," Charlie said when he'd managed to get down about half of the food on his plate. Mostly he just felt sick. How hungry he was under that, he couldn't tell.

Charlie's grandma eyed his plate critically. "I think you can manage more than that. You're too skinny."

In that moment, Charlie gave up, fell over some invisible ledge he hadn't noticed sneaking up on him. He pushed his plate away, folded his arms on the table, and buried his face in them. He was done, and he was beyond the point where anyone could change that.

Charlie didn't even try to listen to what his grandparents were saying to him. He didn't want to know, and just then it was easier to block everything out than it was to make sense of anything around him. Charlie stayed with his head down, unmoving, and hoped for the world around him to disappear.

When Charlie finally lifted his head he had to squint his eyes against the lights in the dining room. They seemed far brighter than before. He hadn't noticed his grandparents leave, but he was alone in the room now, the dishes cleared away from the table. Charlie stood and quietly retreated back to his room.

It should have been better, living here with people who were wealthy and stable, but all Charlie wanted was to go home. Could this place ever become his home? Could he ever really think of his grandparents as family? Right now they were just scary and unpredictable strangers who probably didn't like him much.

Charlie lay back on his bed, put his earphones in his ears, and let his music flood out his thoughts. It didn't make everything better, not by a long shot, but at least it helped to push away the darkness filling his mind. Listening to music left less room for other thoughts and feelings to intrude.

Though he was exhausted, Charlie had a hard time getting to sleep that night. Even after his brain was too tired to put together coherent thoughts it wouldn't stop buzzing. When he finally did drift off, he dreamt he was trapped in a maze, going round and round in circles, unable to escape.


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as Charlie woke up the next morning, he wanted nothing more than to be asleep again. He was still tired, and the world just seemed like too much to face just then. Too much to  _ ever  _ face.

Charlie put in his music and shut his eyes, blocking out the world once again. He was hungry and he needed to pee, but before he'd put his music on he had been able to hear his grandparents up and moving around and he didn't know what he'd do if he encountered them.

With his eyes shut and his music turned up loud, Charlie didn't notice anyone had entered the room until he felt someone's hand on his shoulder, shaking it. He startled and opened his eyes to see his grandpa standing over him. He quickly pulled out his earphones.

"Best get moving," his grandpa said. "Your gran wants to take you to look at schools today."

The weight of all the things he would have to do that day made Charlie's body tense. "I haven't gone to school since— since I was ten. I'm going to be really behind."

"So you'll work hard and catch up," Charlie's grandpa said. "Get dressed and then come and have some breakfast. Now you can have some of that cereal you wanted last night."

Charlie cringed inwardly at the reference to the previous night's events, but there was no anger in his grandpa's voice. As soon as his grandpa had left the room, Charlie reluctantly dressed in some of the new clothes they’d bought during yesterday’s shopping trip. He hadn’t had his head together enough to contribute much in the way of picking anything, but what they’d ended up with had been okay. There were T-shirts and jeans and a new hoodie, and that was all he really needed.

He had expected another lecture from his grandma as soon as she spotted him, but instead she just set a bowl of muesli in front of him without a word. There was more milk in it than he liked, and there were almonds, which he didn't like and carefully picked out, but he ate silently and without complaints.

As soon as he was finished eating, his grandma hurried him out to the car.

Living with his dad, Charlie had learnt to shut himself down when everything got to be too much to deal with. He quieted his mind until all it took in were simple commands and enough information about his surroundings in order to navigate them. This strategy didn't work too well when his grandma seemed to want him to make conversation. Charlie's long periods of silence had never bothered his dad much. It was almost a relief when they reached the first school.

It felt weird, being back in a school after all these years, even if it was just for a tour rather than to actually attend. Charlie felt strangely self conscious, like maybe the students who cast curious looks in his direction as the vice principal led Charlie and his grandma through the halls could tell he had been broken or maybe just born wrong. He felt like the centre of attention, though in truth the few looks he got were mostly disinterested.

Charlie's grandma rejected the first school after discussing their catch up programs and deeming them insufficient and they got back into the car and drove on to the next. Charlie had officially had enough. He just wanted to go back to his grandparent’s house and put his music on and pretend he didn't exist. Every time he found some way to release some of the tension physically, be it by rocking or tapping or chewing his knuckles, his grandma would tell him to stop. By the time they reached the next school, Charlie wanted to bite someone.

The first school had been mostly inside two large, connected buildings, but this one consisted of several separate smaller buildings surrounded by plenty of space to sit outside and eat lunch. The bit of Charlie's brain that cared about anything at all just then preferred that. The cafeteria at the other school had looked like it would be far too noisy and full of food smells during lunch time.

It was the sound of music as they passed between two buildings that really caught Charlie's attention, though. It was lunchtime and students were milling about everywhere, and over the top of their conversations came the sound of a guitar being played and a smooth male voice singing along. Charlie barely got a glimpse of the small stage out in the courtyard before they moved along to the next building, but even that small amount of music had loosened and relaxed something inside Charlie. Maybe he could deal with this for a little while longer.

After a bit of discussion about Charlie's situation that his grandma seemed to deliberately keep vague, the lady giving them the tour told them that Charlie could be put at different grade levels for different classes depending on his level of knowledge in each area. There were tutors available to help if he needed it, too, as well as a disability program which his grandma quickly dismissed with a disapproving frown.

Charlie was relieved when they finally went home for lunch. His grandma discussed the school with his grandpa while they ate, but Charlie was thoroughly tuned out. His grandma had to say his name repeatedly just to get his attention to ask if he'd liked the school. He told her he had, though in truth he'd been too distracted to take in much about it.

It wasn't really a lie when Charlie said he didn't feel well after lunch and retreated to his room to listen to his music. He didn't feel sick, but he felt a long way from  _ well _ . He lay down, put his earphones in, squeezed his eyes shut and wished he didn't exist. He didn't want anything as dramatic as death, he just wanted the world to stop for a while. He knew it never would.

He made it until dinner time before his grandpa came to get him.

"Things will be better once you start school," Charlie's grandpa said from where he stood in the doorway. "You'll see. Once you make some friends, settle in, things won't seem so bad anymore."

Charlie nodded and didn't give voice to all the worries that swarmed his mind. What if he didn't make friends? What if the other kids were mean to him? What if he never managed to settle in? He couldn’t remember ever in his life truly feeling settled and okay. Even when his mum had still been alive, all she’d been able to do was keep him going from day to day and help him pull himself back together when things got bad. How could his grandparents, who had never understood him and seemed to actively dislike him, do better?

Dinner was chicken pie and Charlie managed to get the whole thing down and only got snapped at twice for picking at his food. After dinner Charlie's grandparents tried to get him to play scrabble with them, but Charlie told them he was tired and retreated back to his room.

For about an hour, lying on his bed in the dark, things were stable, okay, and then the song Charlie was listening to slowed and stopped as the batteries in his walkman died again. Charlie felt like he was going to cry. He needed to go and ask his grandparents for new batteries, but he just… couldn’t. He felt too raw.

What he  _ really _ wanted was to go home, back to a place where the world was at least semi-predictable. His dad wasn’t always nice to him, but they’d established ways of dealing with one another over the years that mostly worked. His dad got him batteries, his dad let him be weird, and in return Charlie had learned to lock himself away instead of lashing out.

Charlie spent several minutes staring off into space and tapping out the beat to distant music before he even became consciously aware he was hearing it. Or was he? It wouldn't be the first time he'd imagined he could hear quiet music when he was over stressed. A need to discover the truth was what got Charlie to his feet and over to the glass door that connected his bedroom to the garden.

As soon as the door was open, the realness of the music was confirmed. It was still quiet, but Charlie could hear it clearly enough now that he was sure it wasn't imagined. He hesitated on the precipice between his room and the garden for a moment before stepping outside, drawn towards the beat of the music.

Charlie knew he probably shouldn't have left the house without telling anyone, but he found it hard to care just then. He'd tried his best to be good and he'd failed miserably. He followed the fence that bordered their yard until he found his way to the gate. He opened it quietly and stepped through.

The music was coming from one of the flats next door to them. Charlie knew he wasn't supposed to go over there, that it was trespassing, but he found himself following the music anyway.

The block of flats was single story, set out with cramped gardens around them and a path that led across the small patch of lawn between the flats. Charlie followed the path towards the sound of music and was led to the flat closest to the fence that separated them from Charlie's grandparents' house.

There was a small porch outside the flat, and Charlie found a clear spot and settled himself next to the door. The music wasn't disruptively loud, but he could hear it clearly enough to satisfy himself from this close. He shut his eyes and let his thoughts melt away into soothing punk rock.

Charlie jumped sharply when, several songs later, something brushed against his hand. He opened his eyes to see a fluffy white cat sitting in front of him, watching him curiously.

"Do you live here?" Charlie asked, careful to keep his voice quiet enough so that he wouldn't be heard by whoever was inside.

“Mrrow,” the cat responded.

Charlie nodded thoughtfully and reached a hand out to stroke its ears. "I'm just visiting. Hope you don't mind."

The cat rubbed itself against Charlie's hand enthusiastically and Charlie concluded that no, it didn't mind. They sat together quietly, Charlie stroking the cat and listening to the music and the cat enjoying the affection. He wasn't sure how much time passed before someone started moving around inside the flat and the music was turned off. 

As soon as the cat started meowing and clawing at the door, Charlie quickly moved away. A moment later the door opened just wide enough for the cat to slip inside. As soon as the door was shut again the light inside was turned off. Bedtime for whoever lived there. Charlie let out a yawn. Bedtime for him, too. He crept down the path and made it back to his grandparents house without being spotted.


	4. Chapter 4

Travis was just leaving for school when he spotted Artemis weaving a path along the fence that separated the block of flats from the neighbor's house. She paused and stretched her neck out to sniff the air as she peered around the carefully manicured garden that surrounded the house on the other side of the fence.

"Art," Travis called. "Get down. You'll get sprayed with the hose again if you go over there."

Artemis mewed and looked from Travis to the neighbor's house, unconvinced by Travis' argument.

"Artemis," Travis said, his voice taking on an edge of warning as he stomped over to her. He picked her up and placed her on the ground. "The neighbours hate you and they'll shout at me if they find you in their yard again."

Artemis gave him another quiet mew, squished her tail, and strutted off. Travis glanced at his watch. He was going to be late for school.

♪

The next day, after Charlie confirmed once more that he was happy with the choice of school, his grandma took him in to take placement exams for his classes. How he did on each exam would determine which grade he was placed in for each of his classes. For some of them Charlie felt like he hardly knew anything and that he couldn't even reach eighth grade standards, but he was relieved to find he wasn’t terrible at  _ everything _ .

Shortly after the bell rang signaling lunch for the students, when Charlie was about halfway through his exam sheets, the sound of an acoustic guitar drifted through the classroom window. Charlie didn't even notice he'd stopped working to listen until the teacher supervising him got up and shut the window, blocking out the music. Charlie lowered his head and got back to work.

♪

That evening Charlie forced himself to spend time with his grandparents. He even let his grandpa teach him checkers, though he would have rather spent some time alone. When it passed seven and he asked his grandma for batteries for his walkman, though, she told him they didn’t have any without even looking. Did she know they were out, or did she just not care? Charlie told her he was going to bed and retreated to his room.

Charlie didn't spend long laying around on his own before the sounds of the neighbour’s music tempted him again. He knew if he kept this up he'd probably get caught, but he couldn't resist its lure. The cat met him on the path this time and walked with him to its owners flat. Charlie settled in next to the door and the cat curled up on his lap, purring loudly.

Charlie left earlier that night, as soon as he noticed himself starting to doze. The last thing he needed was to be caught taking a nap on a stranger's porch. He knew the affinity he felt for the stranger through their shared enjoyment of the music was an illusion that would be shattered horribly if he ever actually met whoever lived there.

The next day Charlie went back into the school with his grandma and a teacher sat with them and went over Charlie's results for the placement exams.

Charlie's scores had been mixed. In English he hadn't remembered the names for things like parts of sentences and he had only the vaguest idea of how to write an essay, but one of his favourite hobbies was reading so his grammar, spelling, and vocabulary were quite good.

His geography and history knowledge were not, and he was patchy when it came to the sciences, knowledgeable in some areas and far behind his peers in others, depending on what he'd happened to have read about.

Unsurprisingly, maths was his strongest subject. He'd received nearly perfect marks. This he owed to a huge maths textbook he'd convinced his dad to buy him from the second hand shop when he was fourteen. It had been designed to cover all areas of high school maths in preparation for college.

It had only cost five dollars, but it hadn't been easy to convince his dad to buy it for him. He'd said it was too hard, that Charlie would soon lose interest in it. For once since he'd learnt it was safer not to argue, Charlie had persisted.

Eventually they'd come to an agreement. An odd one, considering all the things Charlie had tried offering in exchange. He would have to eat one meal his father made in its entirety without complaint.

It was true that Charlie was a fussy eater, and that many times that had led to frustration between him and his dad, but a single meal seemed like such a small thing when most of the time his dad forgot to make meals or didn't care whether Charlie partook in them or ate dry cereal instead. In retrospect, Charlie should have been suspicious.

As the teacher tried to convince Charlie’s grandma that Charlie might benefit from some  _ special _ classes, Charlie zoned out as he remembered what had happened the night after he’d bought the textbook.

_ Charlie's dad grinned at him when he set the salad, piled elegantly on their nicest plate, in front of Charlie at their small kitchen table that night. Charlie looked from the salad and then back to his dad, spotting the edge of malice that confirmed his dad hadn't forgotten about his carrot allergy.  _

_ This was a dare, a challenge. What would his dad do if he refused to eat it? Destroy the book? Hold this over Charlie forever as a sign he couldn't be trusted to keep his promises? And if he did eat it, what would happen to him then? He was a careful enough eater that he'd avoided setting off his carrot allergy since before his mum had died. He remembered his mouth itching and swelling a little bit. His mum had been very worried and that had worried Charlie, but it had gone away eventually and Charlie had been fine. _

_ Charlie took a steadying breath, stabbed his fork in the salad, and took a bite. At first, nothing happened. He was onto his third cautious mouthful before he noticed anything off. _

_ It started as a tingling in his mouth, and then when he swallowed his throat felt tight. He could feel his heart thumping hard in his chest as he dropped his fork and looked up to meet his dad's eyes. His dad was no longer grinning, his expression turned to something blank and unreadable. It was becoming difficult to breath. Charlie clutched at his chest. It hurt. Had this been his dad's plan? What was going to happen to him? _

_ As Charlie sagged against the table he heard his dad swear and then arms were around him, lifting him up from where he sat at the table. His every breath came out as a wheeze as his dad carried him to his bedroom and lay him on his bed. _

_ The next thing Charlie noticed, through the panic and feeling of suffocation, was his dad on the phone, but he couldn't even begin to process what his dad was saying. Was he going to die? Was that what his dad had wanted? Charlie patted a hand against his face. It felt swollen and hot. _

_ Charlie must have passed out after that, because when he next became aware there was a strange man kneeling next to the bed. He had Charlie's arm in his hand and was feeling for his pulse. _

_ "I'm not dead," Charlie wheezed out. He wasn't sure why he felt it was so important to tell the man that. _

_ "You're very lucky you're not," the man said. "What you were experiencing was anaphylaxis brought on by an allergic reaction. You're lucky your dad got me over here as quickly as he did, though I still think an ambulance would have been a better choice." _

_ "Oh," Charlie said. _

_ "He was really worried about you," the man said. "He cares about you a lot." _

_ Charlie saw movement and looked up to see his dad standing in the doorway, watching them with an unreadable expression on his face. _

_ "Yes," Charlie said as he watched his dad. "I know." _

“Charlie,” a voice said, followed by a light swat to Charlie’s shoulder, and Charlie looked up to see his grandma frowning down at him. “Time to leave.”

Charlie nodded. Charlie stood. Somewhere, across the school grounds, he could hear the sound of an acoustic guitar. Everything felt too raw, but at the same time not quite real. He followed his grandma silently, keeping his head low.

♪

Charlie went back to the neighbour's house again that night. Somehow the constant music and the quiet sounds of whoever lived there moving around were better company than his grandparents could provide. Someone was there, existing, enjoying the same experience Charlie was. Whoever they were, they felt like the closest ally Charlie had just then.

He stayed until the music was turned off before giving his new cat friend a kiss on the head goodbye and sneaking away before its owner opened the door to let it in for the night.

♪

The next day was Thursday, and Charlie was starting school. He didn't want to. He wanted to learn and he wanted space from his grandparents, but school seemed like such a big, complicated thing. How could he ever be ready for something like that? He fiddled with the stiff collar of his button up uniform shirt as his grandma led him to his homeroom classroom.

"You'll be fine," she assured him. "If you choose to apply yourself, I'm sure you'll do very well. Your mother was so intelligent. If she hadn't let herself get distracted by the wrong things she could have done anything she wanted."

_ But instead she had me _ , Charlie supplied in his mind. He knew how disapproving his grandma had been about that, how she had believed choosing to have Charlie was what had destroyed his mum's life. He remembered. He kept his head down and stayed silent until they reached the classroom and she said her goodbyes.

Inside the classroom was a chaotic mess of sound as students talked to each other, raising their voices to be heard over everyone else, and the bright fluorescent lights made Charlie squeeze his eyes shut against their glare. He found a desk in the corner and curled in on himself, doing his best to hide from the turmoil, but a few minutes later he felt a hand tap his arm. He made a grumbling sound and flinched away.

"Dude, move," a voice said. "This is my seat. Find somewhere else."

Charlie stood and moved a few seats down, but before he could sit a girl stuck out her hand and waved him away. "This seat's taken."

Charlie bit down on the inside of his cheek. How was he supposed to know which seats were truly free? He went and stood in the corner of the room and waited as the classroom filled up, then quickly claimed one of the few empty desks near the front of the classroom when the teacher walked in.

The teacher pointed his pen in Charlie's direction as he settled in behind his desk. "You're new."

Charlie wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a question, but he nodded anyway.

"Name?" the teacher asked.

"Charlie."

"Uh huh," the teacher said as he wrote that down. "And last name?"

"Brooks," Charlie said without thinking. That was his father's last name. He doubted that was what his grandma had registered him under. "Or, um, Wallace?" That was his grandparents last name, the last name his mum had used.

The teacher eyed Charlie for a moment before jotting something down. "Well, I'm Mr Mason, your homeroom teacher. I hope you enjoy your first day here."

Charlie just stared back for too long before murmuring a barely audible, "Thank you." Was that the right thing to say? It didn't feel right.

The teacher's attention shifted away from Charlie after that as he began doing roll call and then reading the morning notices. Charlie did his best to pay attention to what the teacher was saying, but the words that flooded his mind didn't fall together to form anything meaningful.

Once homeroom was dismissed, Charlie was left with a list of his classes and a map of the school and was expected to use the two to somehow end up where he was supposed to be next within the space of five minutes. It was an impossible task, but he knew without asking that nobody in his homeroom would share his next class. He'd done badly enough on his geography placement exam that he'd ended up in a grade eight class.

By the time Charlie found the right building and then the right classroom within it, twenty minutes had passed and the grounds were quiet, everyone else already in class. All eyes were on Charlie as he entered the room, the teacher's included as she waited for him to be seated. Ms Milligan, according to Charlie's schedule.

"You're late," Ms Milligan said once Charlie had found somewhere to sit. He'd wanted to hide near the back, but the only free spots were in the front row. Ms Milligan's grey flecked brown hair was pulled back into a tight bun and the pattern of wrinkles on her face suggested she spent a lot of time scowling, just like she was now.

"I couldn't find the room," Charlie murmured. He'd spoken quietly, but his voice carried in the silence of the room.

"Then you should have asked someone for directions," she told him. "Open your book to page thirty three. Before you interrupted we were..."

Charlie flipped to the correct page in the book, but he couldn't follow what Ms Milligan was saying. She was right, Charlie should have asked for help, but from who and how? People always acted like these things were easy, but they weren't. Not for Charlie.

Ms Milligan pulled down an unmarked map of Australia over the blackboard and began calling students up one at a time to put markers on certain cities and landmarks. Charlie startled when his name was called.

"Sydney," Ms Milligan said, holding a marker out to Charlie.

Charlie froze. He knew where Sydney was. Didn't he? He was fairly sure he did. But what if he was wrong? It was one of the easiest locations, a major city. What if he got it wrong in front of all the other students? Ms Milligan waved the marker insistently in Charlie's direction and Charlie shook his head rapidly.

"You're telling me you don't know where Sydney is?" Ms Milligan asked.

Charlie gave an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders in response. His throat had closed up. He couldn't form words.

"You should at least try," Ms Milligan said, but Charlie just shook his head again. He shoved his knuckles in his mouth and bit down. Ms Milligan sighed loudly. "Eliza, can you find Sydney for me, please?"

The rest of the class passed in a blur. Charlie drew patterns in his notebook, checkers and spirals, keeping part of himself moving so that he wouldn't find himself chewing on his knuckles every time he got distracted. By the time class finished, Charlie felt lost. He stood outside the classroom and looked between his schedule and his map, completely unable to make any kind of sense of them. He didn't notice the girl leaning over his shoulder until she spoke.

"It's just the next building over," the girl told him, pointing.

Charlie stared at her, stunned, for slightly too long before following her finger. "Oh."

She nodded, her eyes drifting to the building before cutting back to Charlie. "Well, good luck."

And then she walked away. Charlie stood there staring at her as she walked away for several long moments before his brain kicked back into gear. Right. He had English next, and now he even knew more or less where he had to go. He hurried in the direction the girl had indicated.

Charlie made it to class before the teacher and found a spot near the back. The room was still half empty of students, but it was filling up quickly. Despite the gaps in Charlie's knowledge, he'd made it into a grade ten class for English. The teacher who had explained his exam results had told him he had a good grasp of the basics.

Charlie hoped to go unnoticed in this class, but as soon as everyone had settled down the teacher, Ms Lawson according to Charlie's schedule, pointed to Charlie and gave him a smile. 

"Charlie, right?" Ms Lawson asked, and Charlie nodded. "Would you like to introduce yourself to the class, Charlie?"

For a moment Charlie just stared, wide eyed. How did you introduce yourself to a class? Charlie wasn't even sure how to do it to one person. It had been a question, though, he realised. One for which 'no' was a possible answer. He gave Ms Lawson a firm shake of his head.

Ms Lawson laughed, though Charlie didn't see how his response had been funny, and picked a book up off her desk. "All right, let's get started then. Here, you can borrow my copy of the assigned reading book until I can get a hold of a copy for you."

Ms Lawson didn't call on Charlie to answer any questions like the other teacher had, but she did keep him on edge by constantly drawing attention to him. Explaining things to him in particular to get him caught up as the class discussed the latest chapter in the book, telling him that he could catch up with the reading in his own time. It was kind, friendly, considerate, and Charlie could barely focus on what was going on around him because of how nervous the attention made him. He wanted nothing more than to be forgotten.

When the bell rang for lunch, Charlie wasn't hungry at all. At least it would give him time to find his next classroom so he wouldn't be late. After he did that, he didn't really know where to go or what to do. He had an hour for lunch and no one to spend it with.

Charlie was wandering around looking for somewhere quiet to sit outside when he heard the first few notes of a song played on an acoustic guitar amplified across the school grounds. Something tightened in Charlie's chest as he headed towards the sound, seeking out the source of the comforting music.


	5. Chapter 5

Travis shut his eyes and allowed his fingers to move across the guitar strings almost without thought as he sang the words to the song into the microphone. He remembered how hard this had been once, when he was still learning, but now he could pick up new songs quickly and allow them to flow out of him as naturally as speaking.

He opened his eyes and looked out at an audience he'd almost forgotten beneath the sounds of the music he was making. It was a powerful feeling, having the attention of dozens of other students on him at once — to draw people, just for a short time, into his world.

If they had let him, he'd have spent every lunch break on this small stage in the courtyard, but others liked the spotlight too. Bands and dancers, the occasional drama group. Many of those people were his friends, though, so Travis didn’t mind taking his turn as an audience member whenever it was time for someone else to perform.

Most of Travis' audience was made up of girls, or at least it was mostly girls who bothered to come up to the stage and watch him play. His acoustic guitar and smooth, gentle voice seemed to lure them in. It was a pity for everyone that he was gay, really.

Travis had the full attention of a guy today, though. One he didn't recognise. He was standing in front of the stage and staring up at Travis like Travis was doing something amazing. He looked maybe a little younger than Travis' seventeen years and had a fringe of dark brown hair not quite long enough to obscure his bright blue eyes.

The guy held himself oddly, shoulders too stiff and one hand clutching at the shirt sleeve that covered his opposite arm. He looked anxious, on edge, but in a gentle way. He reminded Travis of a shy animal offering the gift of its delicate trust in exchange for a valued treat.

Travis smiled at him, but the boy was too absorbed in the music to notice. Well, Travis could hardly be upset by that. He took a deep breath in and drove renewed passion into his voice as he sung the lyrics. If the boy noticed that Travis was now directing the sappy love song at him, he showed no signs of it. His eyes followed Travis’ fingers on the guitar strings as he swayed gently from side to side.

After the song ended, Travis let out a deep sigh and turned off his microphone. He needed a break. He sat down on the edge of the small stage and set his guitar aside before pulling his blazer off. KC rolled a bottle of water across the stage towards him and he shot her a grateful smile as he grabbed it.

A quiet twang jerked Travis’ attention back to his guitar. The boy who’d caught his eye was running his fingers over the strings. "Hey! Who said you could touch that?"

The boy took a quick step back, putting himself out of arm's reach of Travis. His shoulders hunched up and he ducked his head, but his eyes stayed alert on Travis' face. Most people would have just apologised or been a passive aggressive dick about it, but Travis had set off this boy's fight or flight response with nothing more than a gentle scolding.

As soon as Travis glanced away, he saw the boy quietly retreat out of the corner of his eye. Well, so much for that miniscule possibility of actually having a shot with a cute guy for once.

"You shouldn't be so hard on him. I think he might be retarded," Eliza said. She’d come up to lean on the stage in front of him as most of the audience began to wander off.

"Liza!" KC took the water bottle back from Travis just so that she could give her younger sister an admonishing bop on the head with it. "Don’t call people that.”

"But what if he actually  _ is _ ?" Eliza asked. "I think he is, anyway. He's sixteen, but he's in my geography class and he couldn't even find Sydney on a map."

KC made a face. "I don't think that automatically means he's retarded."

"Well, no, but he’s just… kind of weird."

KC, who prided herself on being her own kind of weird, just shrugged. Her hair was shorn short on the sides with a tuft of bright purple curls left long on top. It was definitely against the school dress code, as were the three piercings she had in one ear, but she was top of just about every class she was in so none of the teachers cared too much. “Weird is fine.”

“It’s all  _ fine _ , I’m just saying that I think he has some sort of problem so we should be nice to him.”

Travis frowned as he turned his head to look in the direction the boy had retreated, but he'd already vanished. Well, damn. Retarded or not, it seemed like maybe the kid had some issues. Travis regretted snapping at him. It was just that his guitar was the only object he owned that he really cared about, and he couldn't afford to replace it if something happened to it.

Travis pushed himself to his feet and picked up his guitar. Maybe if he started playing again he'd lure the guy back in.

♪

Charlie pressed himself back against one of the school buildings and took in deep, gulping breaths. He couldn't calm down.  _ It's all right _ , he tried to tell himself.  _ You just made a mistake, it's all right _ . He couldn't stop feeling like he'd ruined something important, though. He wanted to be around the music, but how could he when the boy who made it was angry with him?

The music started up again after a minute, the singer's voice as smooth and calming as ever. Charlie slid down the wall and pressed his face into his hands as his breathing slowed. He was fine. Things would be fine.

Charlie let his eyes drift shut as he listened to the music, but as soon as they were closed an image of the musician's face twisted with annoyance as he snapped at Charlie flashed through his mind. Charlie turned his head to the side as he tried to escape the memory. He didn't want that in his head every time he heard the boy play.

Rocking slowly back and forth where he sat against the wall, Charlie did his best to remember what the musician had looked like before he'd gotten angry, when he'd been absorbed in his music. He remembered his expression first, relaxed and focussed, deep brown eyes that had seemed so gentle until there was anger in them. Brown hair had clung to the sweat on his forehead and curled around his ears.

That had been all Charlie had taken in before his gaze had jumped to the boy's fingers on the guitar strings. He had been fascinated by how quickly and smoothly they had moved, no trace of hesitation. They had seemed like gentle hands to Charlie, too skilled to ever be used for violence. Charlie had wanted to touch them as much as he'd wanted to touch the guitar, to feel the mix of callous and soft skin, but that he hadn't dared.

Charlie's rocking slowed and then finally stopped as he continued listening to the music. He was under no threat. He would just keep his distance until the musician had time to forget about his misstep.

♪

The boy didn't reappear again during break, not even after Travis surrendered the stage to a friend's band so that he could eat some lunch, but there was something about him that stuck in Travis' mind. Wide blue eyes that had looked at him like... like he had mattered. Like Travis' music had enthralled him.

So when Travis walked into his maths class to find the boy sitting in the back corner, staring intently down at his textbook, Travis found it hard to keep his eyes off of him. Suddenly, ridiculously, Travis felt nervous. Should he sit next to the boy? Would that be weird? Yes, he decided, and sat a few seats down instead.

Charlie. That was the boy's name, Travis learnt when Mr Jackson read the roll. The boy's voice was soft, well matched to his features and general demeanour. Yeah, Travis definitely felt bad about snapping at him.

It wasn't until Mr Jackson called on Charlie to give an answer to one of the problems that Travis got a taste of what Eliza had mentioned. Charlie immediately froze, posture stiff and eyes wide. He pressed his lips together in a firm line and shook his head.

Travis opened his mouth to intervene somehow, to say something, but shut it again. All he knew was what Eliza had said, and what could he really say about that? He could hardly announce her theory to the class. Charlie definitely wouldn't thank him for that. 

It didn't didn't matter, though, because Mr Jackson quickly moved on to someone else and left Charlie alone. Charlie didn't relax after that, though. When Travis glanced over, he was staring down at his notebook as he drew spirals on it, his expression tense. A few minutes later, Mr Jackson wandered over and looked through his work.

Mr Jackson kept his voice quiet, but Travis was close enough to overhear. "You've done all your work. You got the question I asked you to answer correct. Why didn't you give me the answer?"

Charlie shrugged, an anxious, exaggerated gesture. He swayed forwards and backwards before abruptly stilling. His eyes were firmly downcast.

"I'll tell you what," Mr Jackson said. "You work as hard as you did today, and I won't call on you again. As long as you're getting your work done, I'll leave you alone."

Charlie let out a long sigh as he nodded, his shoulders sagging with relief as some of the anxiety in his body began to dissipate. As Mr Jackson walked away Charlie bit down on the back of his hand as he rocked backwards and forwards a few times before abruptly stopping and turning his attention back to his maths textbook.

Well, that had certainly been odd, Travis thought as he forced his eyes back to his own still only half finished work. Not retarded odd, though. That implied a low IQ, and Charlie wouldn't be getting questions right in a maths class of this level if that was the case. Just... extreme social anxiety or something. Travis had no clue, but he decided it probably wasn't wrong to feel drawn in by those wide, blue eyes.

♪

The rest of the school day passed much the same as the first half had. It was an overwhelming jumble spiked with moments of acute fear and shame. By the time the bell rang at the end of the day, Charlie was almost glad to see his grandma waiting for him outside the school gates.

"Did you have fun today?" Charlie's grandma asked as she led him back towards the car.

"No," Charlie said, because he hadn't. He really, really hadn't.

The look his grandma gave him suggested that had been the wrong answer. "Did you make any friends?"

Charlie shook his head and stared out across the parking lot. He didn't want to have a conversation. He wanted to go home and hide in his room and listen to his music, but he couldn’t do that because he still didn’t have any batteries.

Charlie's grandma let out a loud sigh. "Did you try talking to any of the other kids?"

Charlie shook his head again. The concrete paving the parking lot was near white and seared his eyes. He squinted against it as they navigated down the rows of cars.

"If you don't talk to the other kids, you'll never make friends," Charlie's grandma said as though that wasn't obvious, like he didn't  _ know  _ that. "Tomorrow you should try talking to someone. Go up to them and introduce yourself."

Charlie nodded his head, but it wasn't an agreement. Just acknowledgement of her words. Charlie would never just approach someone like that. Was that even how normal people went about making friends? Maybe she was even more out of touch than he was.

They got into the car and Charlie buried his face in his hands, blocking out the light. It hurt more than just his eyes. It was just light, but somehow when Charlie was already on edge it was enough to cause him deep distress.

When they finally got home Charlie immediately retreated to his room, citing a need to do homework. He left the lights off and cocooned himself in his blankets, blocking out as much of the world as he could. Wrapped up tightly in the dimly lit room, Charlie felt a little better.

Eventually Charlie emerged and took out his school books. Most of his teachers had excused him from taking part in homework since it was his first day, but Charlie was aware of just how behind he was. He'd only fall further behind everyone else if he did less work than them.

After he'd done what he could of the homework he'd been assigned, Charlie flipped to a map of Australia in his geography book. Sydney was exactly where he had thought it was, but he stared at it anyway, seared it into his memory. It was unlikely he'd be asked that exact question again, but if he was there would be no doubt in his mind next time.

Charlie wasn't hungry, but his body was, so when his grandma called him to dinner he went without complaint. The lasagna she'd made was her least offensive meal yet, but Charlie picked at it and ate slowly. He'd skipped lunch and his stomach was cramping from hunger, but it also felt like it would reject anything he put in it. He ate enough to calm the cramps before claiming he felt unwell and retreating back to his room.

The sounds of the neighbours music were like a siren's call, luring Charlie out of the door and through the gate, over to the block of flats. Thunder rumbled and the first few fat drops of rain began to fall as Charlie settled into his usual spot next to the door. That was okay. The porch was sheltered and Charlie hadn't been planning on going anywhere for a while anyway.


End file.
